is clothes, his skin, his
clear eyes, his slim body, all were as they should be. He had
made a place in the world. He was to be a builder of ideas. She
thought of him, and of the girl in blue serge, and of their
children-to-be.

Her breast swelled exultingly. Her head came up.

This was her handiwork. She looked at it, and found that it was
good.

"Let's strike for the afternoon and call it a holiday," suggested
Buck.

Emma McChesney turned. The train was gone. "T.A., you'll never
grow up."

"Never want to. Come on, let's play hooky, Emma."

"Can't. I've a dozen letters to get out, and Miss Loeb wants to
show me that new knicker-bocker design of hers."

They drove back to the office almost in silence. Emma McChesney
made straight for her desk and began dictating letters with an
energy that bordered on fury. At five o'clock she was still
working. At five-thirty T.A. Buck came in to find her still
surrounded by papers, samples, models.

"What is this?" he demanded wrathfully, "an all-night session?"

Emma McChesney looked up from her desk. Her face was flushed, her
eyes bright, but there was about her an indefinable air of
weariness.

"T.A., I'm afraid to go home. I'll rattle around in that empty
flat like a hickory nut in a barrel."

"We'll have dinner down-town and go to the theater."

"No use. I'll have to go home sometime."

"Now, Emma," remonstrated Buck, "you'll soon get used to it. Think
of all the years you got along without him. You were happy,
weren't you?"

"Happy because I had somebody to work for, somebody to plan for,
somebody to worry about. When I think of what that flat will be
without him--Why, just to wake up and know that you can say good
morning to some one who cares! That's worth living for, isn't it?"

"Emma," said T.A. evenly, "do you realize that you are virtually
hounding me into asking you to marry me?"

"T.A.!" gasped Emma McChesney.

"Well, you said you wanted somebody to worry about, didn't you?"

[Illustration: "'Well, you said you wanted somebody to worry
about, didn't you?'"]

A little whimsical smile lay lightly on his lips.

"Timothy Buck, I'm over forty years old."

"Emma, in another minute I'm going to grow sentimental, and
nothing can stop me."

She looked down at her hands. There fell a little silence. Buck
stirred, leaned forward. She looked up from the little watch that
ticked away at her wrist.

"The minute's up, T.A.," said Emma McChesney.